I kid you not: that’s pretty much the implied message this bizarre tourism ad for North Dakota delivers. I’m still trying to figure out how this could have seemed like a good idea.

Since they’re willing to take this bizarre (and tasteless) approach to luring visitors and tourists to North Dakota, maybe they’d like to try my attempt from a while back:

When the Will Smith movie “I Am Legend” came out, I had a little fun with its post-apocalyptic movie poster by applying it to North Dakota’s then-fledgling “I Am Legendary” campaign (again, who comes up with this stuff).

At the time I thought I’d made a somewhat funny, but oddball and questionable attempt at a tourism poster. It has just been demonstrated that it’s possible to do much worse.

(Update – While rubbing two brain cells together to generate a comment on the Great Plains Examiner site, I came up with this barely coherent screed…)

I understand that the “Leave a Legend” campaign is the underlying theme…that tag line with this photo was simply a BAD combination. Without the “leave a legend” text on this ad, you take a LOT of wind out of the critics’ sails. Even so, it’s not a great tourism ad.

I’m a North Dakota Ambassador, and as such I think we’ve got far better things to promote than downtown night life. Even if one wants to dispel any perceived misconceptions that we don’t have any thriving metro areas, why not find a more family-friendly setting such as a unique restaurant or something with broader appeal? Who are we trying to attract to our state, and do we expect them to bring their families?

We locals may tire of promoting things like Teddy Roosevelt’s sojourn here, but let’s not forget that we have something unique that people want to come and see. Despite North Dakota tourism’s inexplicable ad buys within the state, our campaign should be targeted at the tourists we wish to attact to North Dakota, not at the locals. If you want to encourage tourism within the state, Marketing 101 should tell you to generate a separate campaign for that separate objective.

By the way, aren’t we telling local youths that there’s more to do around here than drinking? I sure am…I’ve been spinning that broken record since the 1980s. So now we have an ad touting the bar scene. Great.

Hopefully this will cause some folks at ND Tourism and their favorite ad agency to step back and take a fresh look at some things. In that case, some good will have come from this blunder.